INM Support at the Pittsburgh Marathon

Students at Hamline University celebrated World Malaria Day 2011 by raising awareness.

Last year, the students held multiple viewings of the documentary “When the Night Comes” which was produced by Bobby Bailey.  This year, however, they have put a plan together to engage Hamline students, assist congregations, and educate children.

For World Malaria Day 2011, the students put up educational displays around the campus to build awareness of malaria in Africa and to encourage action.

They plan to assist church leadership in congregational involvement with Imagine No Malaria as engagement increases throughout the conference by hosting additional viewings of “When the Night Comes”, leading programs about the disease, or supporting church activities.

Furthermore, for an Earth Fair near the campus, Hana Tesfaye (Wesley Staff at Hamline University) and Yvette Diaz (Freshman at Hamline University) have arranged to have a booth for children.  At their booth, children and teachers can learn about malaria’s effects, insecticide treated bed nets, and mosquitoes.  They even created a more ‘child-friendly’ way to create a pipe-cleaner mosquito!

With the fall semester in view and several summer months for planning, the students and staff will, no doubt, have amazing ideas for the upcoming school year!

in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

What can faith do in the fight against a global killer that has claimed hundreds of millions of lives for thousands of years?

Perhaps the better question is what can faith not do against this juggernaut of death and suffering? With innocent lives ending every 45 seconds from malaria, faith may be our last stand against this disease.  Faith may be the home run in the bottom of the 9^th inning that wins this critical game of life and death.

Malaria has brought together communities of faith in new and exciting ways. Faith is a fundamental part of life on the African continent. And, faith groups often have far greater credibility and trust in rural parts of Africa than other groups or government agencies.

More and more faith-based organizations are putting aside their theological differences in the name of saving lives. For The United Methodist Church’s (UMC’s) Imagine No Malaria program, these new partnerships range in scope from the Episcopal Church’s Nets For Life program to the Lutheran Malaria Initiative and also includes Jewish and Muslim faith communities.

“We may not always share the same belief system,” Rev. Gary Henderson, executive director of The UMC’s Global Health Initiative, said. “But, we are all on the same side of this fight – working together to save lives and ultimately eliminate death from malaria.”

Last year, The UMC, through Imagine No Malaria, participated in several major anti-malaria projects with inter-faith partners.  In the Democratic Republic of Congo, The UMC joined forces with a group called CORESA (Partners combat malaria), an interfaith health alliance, to lead the effort to distribute nearly 30,000 insecticide-treated bednets.  In Sierra Leone, faith partners provided most of the 3 million mosquito nets that were provided in November 2010 (Anti-malaria campaign begins in Sierra Leone).

This unique inter-faith approach was featured in the recent television special “A Killer in the Dark,” which provided an up-close look at how faith groups are leading the fight against malaria throughout Africa.

“Working in collaboration, we can achieve so much more than working in isolation,” Rev Henderson continued. “Great progress has already been made with expectations of much more to come.”

Just last year, the World Health Organization reduced the malaria death toll from 1 million to 800,000. With new treatments and greater accountability, the fight continues with more promise of success than ever before.

Join the movement, get involved and give today. The bite of malaria doesn’t have to kill.  But, only if you stop it.

Brent Olson, Episcopal Report, Minnesota Annual Conference 2011

During the Minnesota Annual Conference, Bishop Dyck is normally presented with a gift from the Episcopacy Committee.  Last year she received a gift card to a bookstore that expired in 24 hours! 

This year, however, she was given a different type of gift.  This year, she received a commitment to save lives from malaria.  Brent Olson from First UMC Ortonville was chosen to speak for the committee, but his words were not the stereotypical call to action.  As a grandfather to three, beautiful Ethiopian children, who could have faced malaria, his desire to end deaths from this disease is quite distinct.

Brent’s daughter and son-in-law initially had adopted two children from Ethiopia.  Six months before they traveled to Ethiopia to get the children, their picture was already on Brent’s refrigerator.  He fell in love with them from the picture alone, but international adoption is complicated.  Shortly before his daughter and her husband traveled to Ethiopia to bring the children home an unknown relative claimed them.  Their adoption of these two children was abruptly ended.  Brent and his wife tried to find a way to help support the children monetarily, but they were not allowed.   

“Those children are just gone from our lives forever.  When you’re talking about deaths from malaria, this is who you’re talking about.  This is exactly who you’re talking about – children under the age of five in places like Ethiopia, Sudan, the Congo.  These children are out of my life – I don’t know where they are, I can’t contact them, take care of them, protect them, so I admit I became involved in the Imagine No Malaria campaign under false pretenses.  I cannot save these children unless together we save them all.”

Brent’s stirring call to action reminded the conference attendees “in the end, this campaign in Minnesota isn’t about saving 180,000 lives.  It is about saving one life, one unique, valuable, wonderful life.

One hundred and eighty thousand times.”